Public health seriously needs a political arm dedicated to recognizing active opponents and countering them in the real world. e.g.👇

Dr. Lucky Tran@luckytran.com · 3d ago

I worked for New York’s largest medical center at the start of the pandemic. There were morgue trucks on the streets. They set up emergency medical tents in Central Park. Healthcare worker colleagues died. It is horrific that RFK Jr is on national TV lying that ICUs were empty.

Launched in Rio: We show a major gap in global definitions of pandemic preparedness. Health Security capacity is necessary but, we show, insufficient in real world b/c economic inequality blocks countries' ability to deploy even strong technical capacities 🧵Thread... www.nejm.org/doi/full/10....

Failing to tackle inequality puts countries in pandemic danger, new research shows New England Journal of Medicine piece @josephestiglitz.bsky.social @michaelmarmot.bsky.social @matthewkavanagh.bsky.social 📖 www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.... Background data 📖 www.inequalitycouncil.org/wp-content/u...

And @matthewkavanagh.bsky.social expands on findings: Within countries, inequality creates conditions that viruses spread more easily, pandemics last longer

The first volunteer has been dosed with the world's first BDBV vaccine. www.ox.ac.uk/news/2026-07...

The new UK PM had a chance to close health equity and address pandemic risk at the same time! @michaelmarmot.bsky.social @jessjallen.bsky.social

The BMJ@bmj.com · 2w ago

Improvements in life expectancy in the UK have slowed markedly, more so than in all other rich countries except Iceland and the US. @michaelmarmot.bsky.social & @jessjallen.bsky.social look at how local action will be an important part of solving the UK’s health inequalities @marmotihe.bsky.social

Another massive jump in Ebola cases in DRC (reflecting new cases as well as "data harmonization"). Now 2,905 cases including 1,269 deaths. I find it harder every day to square the size and speed of spread of this outbreak with the lack of attention it is getting. insp.cd/sitrep-n069-...

““Self-reliance” is the term of art for a donor withdrawal that recipient countries did not choose and, in many cases, cannot yet absorb.”

Health Policy Watch - Global health news reporting@healthpolicywatch.bsky.social · 2w ago

Inside View | Mukesh Kapila Global health has the evidence & the solutions. What it lacks is political priority. Funding cuts & delayed decisions carry a human cost, leaders can no longer afford to treat global health as an afterthought! @mukeshkapila.bsky.social @who.int @ec.europa.eu 📖 ⬇️ & 🔁🙏

Even after COVID-19, why is the world still so vulnerable to pandemics? That's the question I'm taking on at the Breaking the Inequality Cycle session at #AIDS2026, with our new research on why preparedness keeps falling short. (hint, it's not 'global health security' capacity)

"Brazilian democracy has many flaws, and far-right sectors remain very much active. Yet Bolsonaro’s fate — and with it, the fate of democracy — was shaped by...a practical reversal of the U.S. model..." Cristina Buarque de Hollanda for @sunsentinel.bsky.social www.sun-sentinel.com/2026/07/09/l...

Lessons from the South: How Brazil held onto its democracy | Opinion

After supporters rioted and trashed government buildings in the U.S. and Brazil, Donald Trump returned to power, but Jair Bolsonaro went to jail. The two countries’ institutions explain why.

sun-sentinel.com

Study finds over 1,700 HIV treatment sites closed due to trip cuts, which helps explain the major slow down we are seeing in data from UNAIDS and Clinton Foundation data. Even with cuts, this could have been avoided with planning. Deeply irresponsible www.nytimes.com/2026/07/21/h...

1,700 H.I.V. Treatment Sites Closed After Trump Aid Cuts, a Study Finds

New research also shows that children and high-risk adult populations have been particularly affected.

nytimes.com

Continued alarming transmission. We have been here before. This is why pandemics and major outbreaks cannot be solved by the health sector alone. Whether AIDS or COVID or Ebola we keep learning this lesson.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus@drtedros.who.int · 3w ago

Two months into the #Ebola outbreak in #DRC, intense transmission in Ituri is our primary concern. Health interventions alone will not stop this outbreak. Urgent political action is needed to secure access, protect health workers and scale up the response. Even a temporary ceasefire would help.

[EXCLUSIVE] Game On: Africa Group Vs The EU. Competing Models For The Pathogen Access Benefit Sharing System newsletter.genevahealthfiles.com/exclusive-ga...

[EXCLUSIVE] Game On: Africa Group Vs The EU. Competing Models For The Pathogen Access Benefit Sharing System

Newsletter Edition #167 [Treaty Talks] Subscribe Now! Readers, I promised myself I will not use football metaphors (my allegiance is to cricket). However, when a top WHO official this week brought ...

newsletter.genevahealthfiles.com

This is really good. Bravo to all the hospitals and clinics that refused to comply with illegal orders that would have harmed their patients (side eye to the rest).

Alejandra Caraballo@esqueer.net · 3w ago

This is huge! The Trump administration is abandoning its plan to withhold Medicaid funding from hospitals that provide gender affirming care to trans youth under 19. www.npr.org/2026/07/13/n...

Not just bad policy. Not just theater. But very clearly illegal.

Reuters@reuters.com · 3w ago

EXCLUSIVE: US to block citizens in Congo from immediate travel home, citing Ebola reut.rs/4yh0iH6

More signs of resurging HIV after USAID’s closure. African Neonatal Network reported at IMNCH (a global health conference): HIV+ pregnant women ↑50% & those not on antiretrovirals ↑>300%, year-on-year, across 22 hospitals in 5 nations. @vtoxfordnetwork.bsky.social

So while the world was focused on a luxury cruise ship…

Kristian G. Andersen@kgandersen.bsky.social · 4w ago

Important post on the ongoing Bundibugyo outbreak in DRC/Uganda. The clock appears to be fairly well-calibrated by now, even if a little slower than what we might have expected. Timing ~early-mid March and a bit of uncertainty re. 1 or possibly 2 intros. virological.org/t/genomic-ep...

Congratulations to Mariangela Simao , long time champion on aids, rights, access to medicines. Excited to work with you in this exciting new role

Some of you think “foreign assistance” will be rebuilt as it was in the past after Trump leaves office. That would be a be a failure.

Amidst nationalism and racist rhetoric, glad to be away from DC this Fourth of July. Istead living in world of one of the US’s great political philosophers, alternative myth making is needed right now. youtu.be/NBe5qbnkqoM?...

‘What To The Slave Is The Fourth Of July?’: Descendants Read Frederick Douglass' Speech | NPR

YouTube video by NPR

youtu.be

The level of misunderstanding politics here is striking. 1) Drops in support for gay marriage is because of a concerted right wing campaign. 2) Young people defying patriarchal notions of sexuality reflects a (good) social shift not confusion. Go home. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/30/o...

Opinion | I’m Gay, Not Queer. It Matters.

nytimes.com

Definitely just made plans to go to the wrong DC airport. Forgot I have layover. Signs of too many planes

Must read… 👇

Madhu Pai, MD, PhD@madhupai.bsky.social · last mo.

What happens with rising authoritarianism, collapse of multilateralism, aid cuts, and erosion of global solidarity? Outbreaks happen and will be harder to prevent or contain journals.plos.org/globalpublic...

Barely mattered, ok but, um….

This is super well deserved for decades of remarkable and beautiful reporting. @stephanienolen.bsky.social

André Picard @picardonhealth @picardonhealth.bsky.social · last mo.

Congratulations to Stephanie Nolen, former Globe and Mail reporter, and now New York Times reporter, who was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada for "exposing inequities in health, conflict and social justice...and groundbreaking HIV-AIDS coverage in Africa." www.gg.ca/en/appointme...

The heart of broken global health right now: research on disease in Congo that will result in vaccines and meds over which global North researchers have monopoly control. Under what theory of good public health (let alone justice) does that make any sense? www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

My Reflection from UN on HIV yesterday. Remarkable, paradoxical, dramatic. At turbulent moment, multilat'lism stuck on many fronts, Political Decl. is STRIKINGLY good on many issues. Fascinating political bedfellows. Signs of HIV crisis biting for com'ities. A thread on politics & policy: 🧵1/12

“Institutions that steward billions of dollars owe their constituencies more” @jirairratevosian.bsky.social in @thelancet.com

The Global Fund needs a more open search for its next leader

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria formally launched its search for a new Executive Director in February, 2026, with the Board expected to make its appointment in October, 2026.1 ...

thelancet.com

Construction of US-backed Ebola quarantine unit in Kenya is stopped Almost 3 million children in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are at risk for infection, UN officials say. Read more: ow.ly/F6wB50Zg2tw 📷: World Bank / Vincent Tremeau/Flickr cc